March 2024

A three-year study of what’s flowing in and out of the city’s slough found the wetlands operating as a “phenomenal” safeguard for Sleepy Eye Lake, discovered a hero in its cattails, and threw a curve ball at researchers, showing that urban runoff – not farmland – is the source of most of the pollutants it captures.One big question remains:How long will it last?“You have the perfect filter at the edge of your town,” Bryce Hoppie, a professor of Earth science and geology at Minnesota State University Mankato, told an audience last week at City Hall, before adding: “I can’t tell you how long it’s going to remain as the perfect filter.”Hoppie’s research was part of a $50,000, city-funded project to collect data on how the slough functions and learn the source of the contaminants that flow into it.

It was near the end of a work week on Main Street, in the old building he renovated with an uncle, when Andy Hawkins began talking about the missing sense of community that helped convince him and his wife, Molly, to sell their practice near the Twin Cities after five years and re-open in Sleepy Eye.As if on cue, the door to Hawkins Chiropractic opened and in walked Molly’s mother, Judy Schwartz, dropping off their 2 1/2-year-old son, Monroe.Familiar faces are often just around the corner in small towns.

An attendee looks over live auction items Saturday at the Brown County Pheasants Forever Membership Banquet. The gathering draws about 350 people annually to the… Login to continue reading Login…

60 years ago - March 31, 1964Sleepy Eye “ham” radio operators are at their sets more than usual, hoping to pick up messages for local people who have relatives in the Anchorage earthquake area.